Who

Shadow Hearts: Covenant

Lately I have been trying to figure out why I keep playing Shadow Hearts. It
is a “role playing” game in the Final Fantasy mode, which means it offers up a
mostly linear series of small dungeon-like areas (even the towns are like
dungeons) where you run around, pick up items you can’t see (as in, they are
not rendered on the screen, you only notice them because your clueless avatar
gets a little “?” bubble when you pass one), meet monsters at random and
generally just run from cut scene to cut scene while the various numerical
attributes of your characters increase at random intervals. Overall the
gameplay is repetitive and stultifying. The cut scenes are stiff and
melodramatic with characters and voice acting that tends towards the humorous
even if they don’t mean to. You can’t really say that the narrative, such as
it is, is all that great.

But for some reason I keep going back to it. So I thought about it for a
while. Here is what I like about the game.

Combat is Fun

The combat system is enjoyable for a number of reasons. First, it is entirely
turn based, so you get plenty of time to fart around and think about how you
want to kick the ass of your foe. Second, after you have decided what you want
to do, the game presents you with a device that can make you feel like a bad
ass: The Judgment Ring. The Judgment ring is timing gauge. You pick an action
for a character and then you must time button presses as a sweeping hand goes
around the judgment ring to determine how well your character does. Gladius
has a similar attack gauge. In this respect, Shadow Hearts combat is
basically like Gladius but without all the moving of characters around on a
grid. Third, the combo system adds a certain amount of strategy and skill to
the mix. Basically, you can chain actions from multiple characters into
“combos” that do extra damage if you manage them successfully. Rewards for
successful combos range from extra damage to bonus cash and experience at the
end of the fight. The monsters are varied in design and are generally fun to
look at. There are also a few that cross that line into the completely bizarre
(the giant puff ball kitten comes to mind).

The main downside to the combat, aside from the repetitive animations and
sounds, is the Sanity Point system. Basically, this is an artificial construct
designed to make you need to stop fighting and babysit your avatars every few
turns lest they go “Berserk” and lose control of their faculties and run over
into a dark corner and wet themselves. I suppose this is supposed to add
“depth” or something, but in practice it just makes boss fights longer and
dumber. Luckily, it’s only an issue in long fights.

In any case, combat is a big part of the game, and it is well done from my
standpoint, which makes the game fun.

It’s Not That Hard

In addition to fun combat, the game has a nice balance between the abilities
of the characters and the difficulty of the foes that you face. Once you get
the hang of the battle system, it’s rare that you will lose fight after fight.
This has the effect of allowing you to play through the game without a lot of
repetition. This keeps the game moving forward at a good clip. Generally, the
game is paced so that you can do one area every hour or two, which fits my
game playing time slots well. This is in contrast to other games I’ve played
recently.

Puzzles and other non combat aspects of the game are also not too hard, but
interesting enough to not be completely tedious. OK. They are sort of tedious.
But it goes by quickly. At least none of the puzzles are the Towers of
Hanoi or depend on you
being able to see the single tiny key in a large dungeon that lets you get
past the door.

Fascinating Japanese Bizarre

Many aspects of the game are truly bizarre and surreal. You keep playing just
to see the next thing. Along these lines the character models are generally
comical. All the women, for some reason, have large chests and wear little in
the way of covering. There is the huge wrestler dude who speaks like Dudley
Do-Right and spends a third of his time in the form of a golden bat. There is
the old guy with the magic puppet in the shape of a little girl. There is the
S&M bitch boss monster. The list goes on and on.

Monster design has a similar sense of strange. For some reason, WWI Europe is
populated by a bestiary from Hell itself. Exactly why this should be is never
spelled out or justified. The world just exists this way. I think this is sort
of cool.

There is a whole side plot involving one of the party members, which happens
to be a white wolf. One mission in the game is a sneaky stealth level where
you control the dog. How many games give you the chance to play a stealth
mission as a dog? Metal Gear Snoopy.

Finally, of course, there is one side quest in the game that has been
immortalized by Penny Arcade.
It turns out that the magic dresses are useful, although the character they
are attached to is somewhat weak. But, there are not that many of them and
unlike the implication in the comic, collecting gay porn is not a huge part
of the game.

Decent Navigation and Save Points

The savepoint system is tolerable. There are generally saves when you want
them and you can always save from the world map mode. The game is good enough
to give you saves before bosses and the save system doesn’t randomly pick and
choose information to throw on the floor without telling you. The game is
pretty flexible about letting you back track to go and find things you might
have missed. But this has limitations. In general, you can’t go back and
perform quest activities that you forgot about after passing any related
milestone. It’s a relief to save a game and not have to replay a whole level
anyway.

Many Cool Items

Finally, the game appeals to any gamer’s inherent obsessive compulsive
collecting nature. The only time I have had any repetitive replays is when I
either forgot to pick up a particular item or just didn’t realize it was even
there, and then ended up needing it later. I think you could drive yourself
nuts playing every level twice to optimize the collecting side quests, but
generally the game is balanced well enough that you can leave stuff behind and
not cause any harm to yourself. I find myself reading the Internet guides to
see what I missed, but I tend not to go back for things unless I really need
to.

Happily, the game also does not require you to pick and choose what items to
bring along or leave behind. The inventory system lets you carry as much as
you want so there is no bin packing busywork. This makes me very happy.

Ultimately, I think Shadow Hearts succeeds by being well crafted rather than
being spectacular in any particular way. You run, you fight, your numbers go
up and then you watch some cut scenes. It’s like a good summer movie with a
lot of action and requiring not too much brain power. I think that having
enjoyed this romp through Japanese RPG land, I’ll have to go and pick up Shin
Megami Tensei: Nocturne now. I think I saw it on sale over at The Exchange.